Author Archives: Brent Huston

About Brent Huston

I am the CEO of MicroSolved, Inc. and a security evangelist. I have spent the last 20+ years working to make the Internet safer for everyone on a global scale. I believe the Internet has the capability to contribute to the next great leap for mankind, and I want to help make that happen!

Detection in Depth Maturity Model

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I have been discussing the idea of doing detection depth pretty heavily lately. One of the biggest questions I have been getting is about maturity of detection efforts and the effectiveness of various types of controls. Here is a quick diagram I have created to help discuss the various tools and where they fit into the framework of detection capability versus maturity/effectiveness.

The simple truth is this, the higher the signal to noise ratio a detection initiative has, the better the chance of catching the bad event. Detections layered together into various spots work better than single layer controls. In most cases, the closer you get to an asset, the more nuanced and focus (also higher signal to noise ratio) the detection mechanisms should become.
 
That is, for example – a tool like a script detecting new files with “base64decode()” in them on a web server is much higher signal than a generic IDS at the perimeter capturing packets and parsing them against heuristics.
 
When the close controls fire an alert, there better be a clear and present danger. When the distant controls alert, there is likely to be more and more noise as the controls gain distance from the asset. Technology, detection focus and configuration also matter A LOT. 
All of that said, detection only works if you can actually DO something with the data. Alarms that fire and nothing happens are pretty much useless tools. Response is what makes detection in depth a worthwhile, and necessary, investment.

How To Increase Cooperation Between SCADA/ICS and the IT Department

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Here is a mind map of a set of ideas for increasing the cooperation, coordination and socialization between the ICS/SCADA operations team and their traditional IT counterparts. Last week, at the Ohio SCADA Security Symposium this was identified as a common concern for organizations. As such, we wanted to provide a few ideas to consider in this area. Let us know in the comments or on twitter if you have any additional ideas and we’ll get them added to a future version of the mind map. Click here to download the PDF.

Thoughts From The Ohio SCADA Security Symposium

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This week, I had the distinct pleasure of playing MC at the 1st annual Ohio SCADA/ICS Security Symposium. The event was held in Columbus Ohio and offered a variety of speakers from federal, state and local government, as well as panels on controls that work and projects that have failed to succeed that included representatives from power, gas, water and manufacturing. These were powerful discussions and the content was eye-opening to many of the participants.

First, I would like to say thank you to all who were involved in the symposium. Their efforts in organizing, executing and attending the event are greatly appreciated. Feedback about the event has been spectacular, and we all look forward to participating again next year.
 
That said, one of the largest identified issues among the conversations at the symposium was the idea that cooperation and coordination between control network operators and engineers and their peers on the traditional business-oriented IT staff is difficult, if not nearly impossible.
 
This seems to be a common conundrum that many organizations are facing. How do you get these two sides to talk? How do you get them to participate in conversations about best practices and technology advances in their respective areas? It seems, that even though these two camps share similar architectures, common dependencies and often similar skill sets, that those things are still not enough to bring them together.
 
In the spirit of the symposium, and in the conversation openness that we identified and encouraged, I would like to ask for your input on this topic. What does your organization do to facilitate open communications between these two groups? What works for your teams? If you haven’t had success, what have you tried and why do you think it failed? Please feel free to discuss in the comments, on the OhioSCADA group on LinkedIn or even reach out to me personally on twitter (@lbhuston).
 
As always, thanks for reading and I look forward to the conversation that follows. Maybe together, we can identify some strategies that work and potentially bridge the gap between these two stakeholding groups. Clearly, from the discussions at the symposium, if we can fix this we can go a long way toward helping ourselves better the security posture and operational capabilities of our environments.

Why a Data Flow Map Will Make Your Life Easier

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It’s impossible to protect everything in your environment if you don’t know what’s there. All system components and their dependencies need to be identified. This isn’t a mere inventory listing. Adding the dependencies and trust rela- tionships is where the effort pays off.

This information is useful in many ways

  • If Server A is compromised incident responders can quickly assess what other components may have been affected by reviewing its trust relationships
  • Having a clear depiction of component dependencies eases the re-architecture process allowing for faster, more efficient upgrades
  • Creating a physical map in accordance with data flow and trust relationships ensures that components are not forgotten
  • Categorizing system functions eases the enclaving process

Don’t know where to start? It’s usually easiest to map one business process at a time. This enables everyone to better understand the current environment and data operations. Once the maps are completed they must be updated peri- odically to reflect changes in the environment.

Click here to see an example of a Data Flow Map. The more you know, the better prepared you can be!

HoneyPoint Maturity Model

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Many folks have asked for a quick review of the way HoneyPoint users progress as they grow their confidence in the product suite and in their capability to manage threat data. To help answer those questions and to give folks a quick way to check out how some folks use HoneyPoint beyond simple scan/probe detection, we put together this quick maturity model to act as a roadmap.
If you are interested in hearing more about a specific set of functions or capabilities, give us a call or drop us a line. We would be happy to walk you through the model or any of the specific items. HoneyPoint users, feel free to engage with support if some of this sparks a new idea for how your organization can deepen your own HoneyPoint use cases. Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!

Audio Blog Post: How to Choose the Best Security Partner

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In this audio post, Brent Huston, CEO and Security Evangelist, interviews MSI’s Constance Matthews and Chris Lay about choosing the right security partner. Also discussed is MicroSolved’s backstory with the State of Ohio’s voting system and how clients benefit from MSI’s partnership philosophy.

Click here to listen: How to Choose the Best Security Partner

A Framework For Managing Mobile Devices For Security

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After several discussions the last few days with a number of folks around mobile technologies and the security risks they pose to organizations, I thought I might be able to help folks by putting forth a quick a dirty (“back of the napkin”) framework diagram.

This should easily demonstrate a high level strategy and give you some thinking points about how your organization manages mobile devices and data interactions from them.
As always, thanks for reading and feel free to engage with me via twitter (@lbhuston), phone or email if you want to discuss the framework or any of the components. My team is always available to help and willing to engage with readers for help with creating the components or reviewing what you have so far. I hope this helps some folks!
Click this link to access the PDF: MobileTechSecFramework

Yet Another Lesson on the Basics from DigiNotar

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This time it was a Certificate Authority (again). Not just any CA, either, but an official CA that manages the “PKIOverheid” for the government of the Netherlands. In other words, a really important CA, even in a league where most, if not all, CA’s are important.

What happened? They got breached. They got breached in a way that allowed attackers to create at least 531 rogue certificates with their trust models. How did they get breached? It seems to stem from a combination of attackers exploiting basic issues to gain access, then leveraging more advanced custom skills to get the certificates generated and extrude them. I am basing that opinion on the Fox-IT report located here. (The report itself is well worth a read).

The critical issues identified?

  • Lack of a secure architecture for CA servers (1 Windows domain, connectivity from management network)
  • Missing patches
  • Lack of basic controls (AV, in this case) which allowed exploitation by basic attacker tools such as Cain/Abel
  • Poor password policies, logging and management of detective controls

If you follow our blog, attend our talks or listen to our podcasts, you should be seeing this as another reminder of just how critical it is to do the basics. Having powerful tools that no one watches, engaging vendors to do assessments that you ignore and spending money on controls that don’t matter won’t create an effective information security program. Getting the basic controls and processes in place might not protect you from breaches against resourced, skilled attackers completely, either, but it will go a long way toward giving you some protection from the most common threat models. In this case, it might have helped a CA know when they were under attack and take action against their threat sources to mitigate the breach before they got to the crown jewels or in this case, the crown certificates.

The attacker has been posting to Pastebin, (presumably the attacker), that they have access to other CA providers. If you are a CA or run a certificate system, now might be a good time to have someone take an independent third-party look around. It might be a good time to spend a few extra cycles on “just checking things out”.

If your organization is still stuck chasing vulnerabilities and hasn’t done a holistic review of their overall program, this would be a good impetus to do so. It should become an action item to look at your program through the lens of something like the SANS CAG or our 80/20 of Information Security lens and ensure that you have the basics covered in an effective manner. If you have questions or want to discuss the impacts or issues some of these recent breaches have against your organization, give us a call. As aways, thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

MicroSolved Releases HoneyPoint Special Edition: Morto

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We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of a special edition of HoneyPoint that is designed to help organizations identify hosts infected with the Morto worm that is currently circulating.

HPMorto works like this: It opens a TCP listener HoneyPoint on port 3389/TCP (check to make sure that port is NOT in use before running HPMorto). Once in place, the tool will report the source IP of any systems who attempt to connect to it. Identified sources should be investigated as possible infected hosts.

This version will only listen for 3389 connections and will only function through February 28, 2012.

Versions of HPMorto are available for FREE download for:
Windows 
Linux 
Mac OSX

Give it a try and we hope that this tool help folks manage the problems being caused by Morto around the world.

McAfee: 65 Million Malware Samples — And That’s Just the Tip of the Iceberg

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I was fascinated by this article that came across my newsfeed earlier this week. In it, McAfee says that they have hit 65 million malware samples in the 2nd quarter of 2011. I have heard similar stories in my frequent conversations with other AV vendors this year. It seems, that the malware cat, truly is out of the bag. I don’t know about you, but it seems like someone forgot to warn the crimeware world about opening Pandora’s box.

One of the things that I think is still interesting about the number of signatures that AV vendors are creating are that they are still hitting only a small portion of the overall mountain of malware. For example, many of the AV vendors do not cover very many of the current PHP and ASP malware that is making the rounds. If you follow me on twitter (@LBHuston), then you have likely seen some of the examples I have been posting for the last year or so about this missing coverage. In addition, in many of the public talks I have been giving, many folks have had wide discussions about whether or not AV vendors should be including such coverage. Many people continue to be amazed at just how difficult the role of the AV vendor has become. With so much malware available, and so many kits on the market, the problem just continues to get worse and worse. Additionally, many vendors are still dealing with even the most simple evasion techniques. With all of that in mind, the role and work of AV vendors is truly becoming a nightmare.

Hopefully, this report will give some folks insight into the challenges that the AV teams are facing. AV is a good baseline solution. However, it is critical that administrators and network security teams understand the limitations of this solution. Simple heuristics will not do in a malware world where code entropy, encoding and new evasion techniques are running wild. AV vendors and the rest of us must begin to embrace the idea of anomaly detection. We must find new ways to identify code, and its behavior mechanisms that are potentially damaging. In our case, we have tried to take such steps forward in our HoneyPoint line of products and our WASP product in particular. While not a panacea, it is a new way of looking at the problem and it brings new visibility and new capability to security teams.

I enjoyed this article and I really hope it creates a new level of discussion around the complexities of malware and the controls that are required by most organizations to manage malware threats. If you still believe that simple AV or no malware controls at all are any kind of a solution, quite frankly, you’re simply doing it wrong. As always, thanks for reading and stay safe out there.